


In The Declining Years

by rustkid



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Horror, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Season 5, Scottish Safehouse But It's The Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28052211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustkid/pseuds/rustkid
Summary: After the end but before the beginning, Martin gathers firewood.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	In The Declining Years

**Author's Note:**

> A story I began after the Season 5 Teaser dropped, put on the back burner after the season properly began, and have decided to dust off and present to the world. Title is from the Mountain Goats song In The Craters On The Moon. Major shoutout to Ostentenacity for the beta!

On the third day, Martin goes outside for wood. 

They were running low, before. There was a stockpile in the shed, no doubt left over from when Daisy was in and out--enough for a funeral pyre, Martin had said, meaning it as a joke, but Jon had just nodded, and there was that look in his eye that meant the Beholding was telling him something Martin didn’t want to know. Still, the shed was a bit of a walk, and the wood had to be carried uphill because the path was too overgrown for the wheelbarrow, so they’d let the pile in the house run down. It had been something to do tomorrow, when tomorrow was still a wonderful thing to have. 

Now, there is no more time. Martin marks days based on Jon’s schedule: when he rests, not sleeping but lying with his eyes closed in a tiny ball in the corner of their shared bed, it is night. Day is when he gets up and sits in a tiny ball in the corner of their room, instead. They don’t do much, the first day. Martin holds Jon and Jon shakes, hands clenched tight in his lap, making small sounds that are almost like laughter. Later, Martin manages to pull Jon into the kitchen, where they attempt to play cards. Jon plays badly; he forgets his turn and spends too long looking at his hand, and then after the third lost round he gives up and goes back to the bed. 

The second day had been much the same, but without the cards.

And now, the third day. The fire burned all night and that means it is time to get more wood. Jon assures Martin that he can go outside-- “They won’t come after us here,” he says, and Martin doesn’t ask how he knows this but does ask why. Jon’s smile goes a little too wide, and there’s a hitch in his voice that’s almost laughter when he says, “They don’t need to.” 

Outside, the sky is black, sunless, but Martin can see anyway, with perfect clarity--the world cast into sharp definition, more real than real, although the colors are grey in a way that makes his head hurt. He can hear howling in the distance, and thunder. A thunder that sounds like something very large baring its teeth and growling. The image passes before his eyes of a giant wolf crouched on the mountains, its black fur camouflaged with the black sky, its mouth open and dripping. He shivers. 

Down the path, to the shed. It isn’t far. Just a bit of a walk. A chance to stretch his legs. The air smells of iron and smoke. He has the sudden, absurd impulse to whistle. The gravel crunches dully beneath his boots, weeds catch at his legs. He pictures himself as a character in an old cartoon, a vaudeville performer, a Punch and Judy show, bouncing down the path with his hands in his pockets, whistling through the end of the world. 

The shed is a small, ramshackle thing made of sheet metal and covered in a thin layer of ivy. The leaves prickle as Martin approaches, although there isn’t any wind. A few steps away, and he sees that the door--padlocked, the last time he saw it, with the best lock the village store sold--is ajar. He stops, chest contracting painfully. The lock sits open on the ground, the metal pitted with rust. It had been new when Martin bought it, only a few days before the world ended. 

He should go back to the house and find Jon. He should go back to the house and get a torch. He should just suck it up and trust Jon, trust that they’re safe, for now, that it’s just something trying to get under his skin. Instead he just stands there, still, the wind cold and soft against his face. 

When he finally moves, it’s towards the woodshed, not the house. He does not feel safe. He does not trust the way the door seems to creak open as he approaches it, swaying slightly on rusted hinges. The fingernail sliver of shadow, widening. But it is cold and the wood is running low, and there is only one way to change that. 

He goes into the shed, where it is dark. He gathers the wood in his arms. He cannot carry as much as they will need, not without multiple trips, but it will be enough for now. He can hear his own ragged breathing, every sound the ivy makes as it scrapes against the walls. The back of his neck prickles as though something is walking across it, something many-legged and small, small enough to slide down the back of his shirt, to burrow into his skin. When he slaps at it with his hand, there’s nothing there. The wood tumbles to the ground, and he bends, picks it back up, and leaves. 

He locks the door behind him, despite knowing that it won’t stop anything that matters. 

Inside, the main room of the cabin is empty. Martin removes his shoes, stokes the fire, and goes into the bedroom. Jon is there, lying on his back on the bed. His shoes are on. His eyes are open, staring upwards at the ceiling, or at something beyond the ceiling. Martin raps his knuckles against the doorframe, and after a minute Jon’s eyes slide to him, and then back up. It’s all the acknowledgement he’s going to get; he tries not to let that sting, not when there are far worse things to be worried about. 

“Going somewhere?” he says. 

“Hm?”

“You’re wearing your shoes,” Martin says. 

“I know,” Jon says. “I am not. Going anywhere, I mean.”

“Right,” Martin says. The second part of that sentence, that there is nowhere left to go, hovers in the air between them. Martin clears his throat. 

“Well,” he says. “Going somewhere or not, can’t help to get dirt on the comforter.”

Slowly, Jon sits up. His eyes land on Martin, seeing him for a moment, before they lose focus. A smile flits across his face, or maybe it’s a grimace: a flash of teeth, and then gone. Martin tries not to wonder what horrible fate he’s experiencing. It occurs to him that it should be disturbing, the fact that he’s more worried about Jon’s second-hand fear than the life of the poor bastard being tortured. But he cannot make himself care. His world has narrowed to the eye of this hurricane, to the suffering of the man in front of him, the labor of keeping this house and the people in it intact. There isn’t room in a world that small to grieve for strangers.

“Fine,” Jon says. “I’m sorry.” He leans down to untie his shoes, and Martin thinks this isn’t what I wanted, which he knows is truly an absurd thing to think, given the circumstances. 

“It’s ok,” he says, and Jon exhales in a way that’s almost a laugh. “I just, you know. Just because the world’s over doesn’t mean we can’t keep our sheets clean.”

“I’m sure something will come to dirty them sooner or later,” Jon says. “The creeping hive doesn’t particularly care about the laundry.” 

“I thought you said we were safe,” Martin says. He feels, again, the crawling on the back of his neck; this time, he’s sure it’s his imagination. Jon does laugh this time, high and crackling. One of his shoes hits the floor with a soft thump. 

“No, Martin,” he says. “I don’t think anyone will ever be safe again.” 

“Right, well,” Martin says. He has to stop for a moment, swallowing the rest of his sentence, waiting for his heartbeat to slow down and come back under control. Jon is bent over his other shoe, hair hanging in front of his face. It’s mostly grey, now, a dull slate color shot through with black. Martin wonders if he could cajole Jon into the shower later, get him to wash his hair. This is what life has become: a series of tasks, so small, and yet so much harder than they’d ever been before. After the wood, a fire. After the fire, a shower. After the shower… he didn’t know, but surely something would come up. 

“That still doesn’t mean we have to sleep on gritty sheets until then,” he says finally. Jon smiles, just a small twitch of his mouth, but it looks genuine. Martin, helpless, smiles back. 

“No, I suppose not,” Jon says. “No use doing the corruption’s work for them.”

“Yeah,” Martin says. He walks over to the side of the bed--a small thing, too small for the both of them, with an old quilt he’d found at a second-hand shop, bright colors that clashed in a way he’d found charming. Now, looking at them makes his head hurt. There’s something about the patterns that seems strange, the flowers twisting in on themselves in endless shifting loops, so he just looks at Jon instead. Jon, whose wrists stand out narrow and knobbed as he fumbles with shoelace. Jon, who is still wearing the shirt he wore when the world ended, a dark blue t-shirt with a hole worn at the hem, shrouding his narrow body in wrinkles. 

He puts his hand at the back of Jon’s neck just above his collar, feeling the knot of his spine, the corner of the scar Daisy left, the skin there gnarled and worn like the wood of an old tree. Jon leans into the touch, and then away. For a moment his entire body tenses, tendons standing out sharp on his neck as his shoulders fold inward. Martin wants to hug him so badly it’s an ache. Wants to hold him still so he’ll stop trembling. Instead he smooths down the comforter around them, picks up Jon’s one fallen shoe, puts it against the wall next to the dresser. Then he kneels, and reaches for Jon’s other shoe. Jon bats his hand away, so fast it seems like a reflex. 

They look at each other. Jon’s eyes are bloodshot. The pupils are dilated, black. There is an eyelash stuck to his cheek, just above a worm scar. Martin loves him so much he chokes with it. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Jon says. “I’m not a child, Martin.”

“Yes, I have figured that out, thanks.” Martin says. “What with how you were my boss and we’re--” dating is the wrong word; there’s nowhere to go on dates, after all, and it’s not like they’re still trying each other out. Even if the world hadn’t ended, this would have been it, for him. “--together now, and everything. I just, I wanted to...”

There’s a moment when Jon’s expression softens. Then his gaze goes distant again and his breath hitches, a small whimper of someone else’s pain. Slowly, giving Jon time to pull away, Martin removes his other shoe and puts it in beside the first one. Lines them up at a right angle to the wall, straight, tucks in the tongues. The leather is cracking at the heel, the soles worn. They will need new shoes, eventually, he thinks. Assuming items still work properly. That is another task: go to what’s left of the village, and find shoes. Soon, before Martin’s wear out. This is not a world in which to go barefoot. 

When he turns around, Jon is lying down again. He is on his side, his arms folded up against his chest. A thin grey line in a sea of jarring color. Martin sits at the foot of the bed and rests his hand on Jon’s ankle and Jon lets him. He slides his thumb against the strip of skin between Jon’s sock and the hem of his trousers, back and forth. 

“I brought some wood in,” he says. “So we can make a fire, in a bit, if you want to come to the living room.”

“Did you?” Jon says. He sounds very far away. Martin wraps his fingers around his ankle and squeezes.

“No,” he says. The answer comes out too fast, and suddenly it’s true. There was always wood in the box. It never ran out, because nothing ever runs out, here. The house is always warm. He didn’t carry anything up the hill. He didn’t need to. But he remembers it. The weight in his arms, the way the one large splinter kept jabbing into his bicep. The sound it made when he put it down. He pulls his hand away. 

“I’m sorry,” Jon says. 

“I don’t,” Martin says. “I don’t understand. What was--was it the thing in the shed, did something--”

“It isn’t in the shed, Martin,” Jon says. His eyes are bright. Martin swallows. “It’s everywhere. It is the shed. It’s this house. It’s us.” 

“It’s not me,” Martin says. “Jon. Whatever else, please, just know that it’s not in me.” 

“I know,” Jon says. It seems to take him too much effort--he slumps further against the bed, knees drawing up towards his chest. He reaches out a hand, and Martin takes it. It is the hand with the burned palm; Jon can only bend his joints halfway, but he does bend them, enough to thread his fingers through Martin’s. He looks away, to the window. In the distance, something is moving; a gnarled form, one of many small and infinite hells, undulating in silhouette against the endless black sky. Here, the walls creak inward, softly, always softly. Jon squeezes Martin’s hand, and clings. “Yes," he says, "I know.”


End file.
